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The white guitar was somehow bloodied during a local show. I didn’t notice it until the last song of our set, at which point I looked down at my hands only to discover that they were clean. A more thorough inspection after the show revealed that the blood was actually not mine. I never did find out whose it was. I decided to leave it on the guitar for some time before I came to the conclusion that it, not being mine, was actually kind of gross. The blood on the grey guitar, however, is mine. I purchased this guitar on Ebay for a whopping $100. I was looking for something in a Les Paul body style that was cheap enough to break if the moment ever came. While I did throw it around a bit, I never got the chance to break it into pieces. The brand name was “Great” and was actually written to vaguely resemble the Gibson logo. This caused some cunfusion, when scouring Ebay for a cheap guitar, I thought I’d found a silverburst at an incredible bargain. That was not the case. I mainly used this guitar for “Why Try Harder,” as it’s typically the last song of our shows and has an alternate tuning (F#/F#/C#/F#/A#/D#). Moving around quite a bit often resulted in the dropping of guitar picks, necessitating the need to play with just my hands… which explains the blood. As much of a piece of crap as this guitar was, I kinda liked it and couldn’t really bring myself to totally destroy it.

However, one night after playing a show, all was lost. We booked the show, which makes us the people to talk to about getting paid at the end of the night. Apparently, neither one of the opening bands or the bartender were aware of this as the wrong band took everyone’s money at the end of the night. To top it all off, the band took my bag of cables which happened to have my car keys inside. At almost 4 am my girlfriend had to come and rescue me. We somehow managed to fit everything inside and a couple hours later I was home. Being almost 6am I decided just to leave the gear in the car and unpack it later. the sun was coming up and what kind of person would break into a car on a busy street in broad daylight? Did I mention I live on one of the largest campuses in the country? Yeah, so that’s who breaks into cars on busy streets in broad daylight apparently. When I went out to the car around noon I immediately saw the shattered glass. My heart sank. While I’m smart enough to insure my gear… I wasn’t exactly dying to have a conversation with a claims adjuster. Fortunately the thieves only took one thing. Apparently, when breaking into a car on a busy street in broad daylight one doesn’t have the privilege of discrimination. So they took the Great bloody guitar. Value when new, $100. Value after paint had been chipped, strap buttons broken off and replaced with screws, and covered in a fair amount of someone’s (mine) blood, $0.

My gear is like my children. Even the stuff I’m not particularly proud of, I still love in a special way. There’s really no piece of gear I’m comfortable with losing, whether it be a crappy guitar, or a $10 cable. In fact, the nicest thing about this guitar was the case that I’d bought for it which was worth more than the guitar itself. By the time it was stolen, it was so beaten from traveling that it was worth practically nothing either. I just wish I could have seen their faces when they opened that case. They probably couldn’t sell it for a dollar, but I’d gladly purchase it back for another hundred.

There’s no easier way to tell the world that your band sucks than to have your picture taken in front of train tracks. Stairs and brick walls are also common, but nothing is quite as definitive as train tracks. Why is this? I’m not exactly sure. Maybe it’s because their picture says, “Look, I don’t know where I’m going or how to get there so I’ll just try the dumbest thing possible. I mean, if I were to NOT follow train tracks I’d probably just walk in circles. At least I know these tracks lead to something.” Yes, little buddy, they do lead to somewhere. Unfortunately for you it’s somewhere a billion people have already been, and in case you haven’t noticed…no one else is walking with you except the other local buffoons you somehow managed to wrangle up. Really though, if your band’s grand presentation to the world is something that’s already been done countless times, you may as well give up before you waste any more time.

So I had this idea for song. Actually it was more than an idea. The way things seem to work with us is this: I take a good few weeks to find a guitar part that eventually find a partner. If I’m lucky, words come to mind when these two meet. If these two parts are wed without words, then it’s very likely that it will retire to the heap of what might have been. In this particular circumstance, I’d re-imagined the guitar part several times. In fact, I’m still not completely satisfied with the melodic progression. Regardless, the lyrics had mostly been written, and a skeleton existed. All that really remained, aside from the effort of synth and sound design, was naming the damn thing. I had the perfect title, “Parker and Barrow.” You see, the song was about the wanting of a woman of whom was the subject’s equal. If only they could get on the same page, the world would surely be theirs. What other personas could exemplify this better than Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow? Get it? See how I saved you a Wikipedia trip? The title would ideally scintillate just enough to provoke minimal research from the listener, ideally, since it’s impossible to determine the laziness of the listener. Being a small band, minimal is about the amount of effort that one can subject one’s listeners to. Honestly, if anyone were to Google half of what’s been contained on our few releases… you’d either wind up bored to death or mildly amused. Either way, there is content buried.

I should quickly assert that we don’t think our listeners are stupid. We just realize that we’re not Tool. We understand that we don’t have a small army of 14 year olds trying to decipher every word we say. We assume you have better things to do.

Anyways, I go to see Spruce Campbells for the release of their release of their EP “Death of an Art Monster.” Good crowd, great bands, and one informative alternative local newspaper, that alongside with a review of the Spruce’s EP, informs me that they ALSO have a song called “Parker and Barrow.” One should now infer from the first paragraph that I intended to title our song by the same name. Apparently I’m not the only one who thought hipsters would appreciate a casual history lesson. In fact, there are few things hipsters appreciate more than discovering a historical fact that is at once not overwhelmingly involving, while at the same time revisits already accumulated knowledge. Really, there’s no better way to convince someone that they’re clever than to remind them of something they’ve forgotten without poking them in the face to do it. The idea is to make hipsters think that they’ve stumbled upon something incredibly unique, that they can tell all of their hipster friends they discovered over a micro brew, while not making them go to such great lengths as to actually research and learn anything for themselves. In short, make your “puzzle” easily solvable via Google, and not required any actual knowledge.

Yes, we play these games. If one were so inclined, one could uncover a small trove of similar tricks we’ve placed throughout our modest catalog of songs. Though most of these things actually require of a bit more effort than simply Google’ing something.Well, maybe not, but we’re usually not so inclined as to place what should be one’s search query in the title.

Apparently Spruce Campbells are in on the joke as well, at least to some extent. Check them out at http://www.facebook.com/thesprucecampbells! I might also mention that they were the first Columbus band I gave half a shit about. Several more were to follow, but these guys (and girl) should certainly not be ignored.You like the Pixies and/or the Dandy Warhols? If so, check these guys out. If not, check them out anyway.

Picture of the day: (Jason, Spruce Campbells, well aware that he made off with the sweet song title)

We’re gonna try a few thing. Feel free to stick around and see if any of them interest you. One of things is a picture a day, not always music related. In fact, This isn’t always about music. This site is about Myself (Jon), Jimmy, whoever our drummer happens to be at the time, Chris, and everyone we meet (you).

I was watching something with Rene Zellweger, and I thought I should share her origins with all of you.

Seriously though, we’re gonna post a picture every day. It won’t always be about music, it won’t always be interest,t won’t always be appropriate for minors, but we’re gonna see if we can wrangle the discipline to do something like this everyday.